Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Obviously google gives some weight to internal links, but does anyone have any idea how much? How many external backlinks would it take to compete with this site? I guess the underlying question is how much is an internal link worth...especially if they are the bulk of one's links.
Are they equal? I doubt it somehow. If internal links are worth less,
is it 2/3, half or 1/3 as much value as an incoming link?
Has anyone done a study or test on this? -Larry
BUT ALL 900 are INTERNAL links(all from their domain).
Are you saying this because you used the link: search on Google to check their backlinks?
If so, try doing the backlink search on Yahoo and see if you get a different set of backlinks.
It would seem ridiculous that just because someone has a site with lots of content they can automatically get so many backlinks.
Anyone have some insight?
It would seem ridiculous that just because someone has a site with lots of content they can automatically get so many backlinks.
It makes perfect sense. They have some PR to dish around to internal pages. That means that other sites are linking to them (deeplinks by the sound of it) because they are worth linking to. That PR is being redistributed around the internal pages by the navigation structure. How else would you propose to define "authority" in broad-brush principles?
The site does have external inbound links, you just haven't found them yet. It may be that the external links are inbound to internal pages ("deeplinks"), not the homepage. You're only looking for backlinks to the homepage.
To get the measure of a domains entire backlinks, you'd need to check every single page on that domain. Remember to think pages with Google, not domains.
How many external backlinks would it take to compete with this site?
Impossible to answer. How many results are returned for the main keyword search and a "allinanchor:mainkeyword" search? In very general terms, you need more than the sites holding the SERPS top spots for those searches. You may need a lot more, you may need a lot less, depending on how your on page factors fair in the Google algo at any given moment. Aiming for more backlinks, being careful with your chosen anchor text, than anyone else in your sector is a fairly safe way of ensuring at least page 1 placement.
I guess the underlying question is how much is an internal link worth
Pretty much worthless without some external inbound links. The more external links you have, the greater value the internal links will have. Think about it from googles perspective. You are looking to define "authority" algorithmically.
TJ
Can you have an 'authority' link from a page on the same site?
Yes, absolutely. But just how authoritative is a question of scale of both page and topic.
TJ
Can you have an 'authority' link from a page on the same site?
I think so.
This explains why, once your page gets authority status for "widget", itīs easier to get another page to rank high for "keyword widget".
I failed to mention in my first post, this site is an authority site, but they only have 1 page with content that I am attacking. i.e. www.domain.com/mykeyword.htm.
You say that I just can't find their backlinks, not true in this case because I am not trying to compete with their www.domain.com but one page of content they have (that is showing #1 on google). This would obviously change your response no?
In a world of weird, this is about the weirdest sentence yet.
On the other hand, making large sites just to make links doesn't necessarily say anything about quality or "content".
Google for the most part ranks pages. Whether pages are linked to from their own domain or other domains should make almost no difference. Google needs to do a little better (they do pretty good already) at valuing quality domains so they pass along stronger algo punch to their internal pages, and those pages compete on better terms with index pages from more trivial sites. It seems like they are doing a good job in this example case.
On the other hand to compete with that one page, your content, links and delivery have to be better than theirs and even then, its sometimes a toss-up based on a lot of other factors (age of site, etc come to mind)
Forgive the poorly worded questions...I was in a rush. Let me clarify and perhaps qualify the aforementioned statement in your reply.
This "example" site has 1 single page pertaining to this particular content...lets say the competitor's site is about animals. The particular animal that my page is about only has 1 single page of poor content on the competition's ENTIRE site. At the bottom of all say 900 of their pages they have a ridiculously long list of links that takes up 1/3 the page (150 links to the most popular animal pages within their domain).
So the instantly have 900 internal backlinks and a #1 ranking. My page on the other hand focuses on this one particular animal and does so with a quality that far surpasses the competition. I have a good number of germane, external backlinks highlighting the fact that others feel my conent is very good.
Now does it seem fair they they can procure a #1 ranking (with only internal links) when other sites don't feel my competition's content is good enough to link to?
They could just as easily have great content on that page, and you could have junk.
There is no reason at all that everyanimal.com/ugly/armadillos/ shouldn't rank great because it has 900 internal backlinks, while onlyarmadillos.com doesn't have that many.
On a more top level note - why the need to compete with the #2 result? What's the #1, #3, #4, #5 result? Where is your website site currently sitting?
Generally any result in the top 5 is still pretty good.
I suggested you think about "defining authority alogrithmically" and I used the word "algorithm" deliberately. I'm not suggesting for a moment that the algo's get it right. They're just a stupid computer program. They're not a human. Remember that.
You have two choices, and I think by definition you have already chosen yours : to build a site of high quality, and specialising in your niche.
If you continue down that route, you will be #1. Eventually you will. Concentrate on your content and your inbound links (and, critically, your anchor text, both internal and external).
You can beat this page, but, without control of an authority domain, you cannot beat them at their own game.
TJ
What Google wants to do is provide the searcher with a satifactory result somewhere in the top results. The "Best" site can be at number 384, but if the majority of searchers find some satisfactory information by the time they stop looking through the results, Google has done their job.
The truth is that for some searches, the quick blurbs on the subject can satisfy some searchers better than the in depth content.
I still think it is better in the long run to provide the good content. Like you said, you are the one getting the external links. You are likely to keep getting those links, and your rank will improve over time
And do work on your internal linking structure. Instead of having one page on the subject that you want to get ranking high, can you write 10? 20? 50?
How about writing good content on other relate subjects and beating them at their own game, yet with good content instead of the crap that they have there now?
